


Snow Trials

by Tallihensia



Category: Smallville
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-17
Updated: 2013-01-17
Packaged: 2017-11-25 21:33:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/643189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tallihensia/pseuds/Tallihensia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After chasing off aliens from an attack on Earth, Clark heads back to the planet to deal with the fall-out. When he goes to find Lex, Clark gets trapped and then they must work together to find a way out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Snow Trials

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tasabian](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tasabian/gifts).



> **Disclaimer:** Only mine in my dreams. This story was written for free entertainment purposes only and may not be reproduced for profit or altered without permission.
> 
>  **Warnings:** The story has some angst at the beginning and off-screen deaths (nobody we know). (FYI, No matter what Clark thinks at the beginning, this is NOT a major character death fic.)
> 
>  **Spoilers:** General first season stuff.
> 
>  **Notes:** Gift for Tasabian for the Clexmas Gift Exchange. Prompt was _Clark and Lex forced to work together._ Story is AU off end season 3, many years later. It, ah, went a bit astray from the prompt, though it kept to the main idea. Mostly. ^^;; Hope you enjoy! (Much beta love to Sue Dreams for the ultra-last-minute work!)

## Snow Trials

The alien ship fired another missile at Superman. Clark automatically dodged it, then cursed his reflexes and turned to go after it. From an earlier one that had exploded on him, he could tell that it was more powerful than nuclear, and of an unknown base material. He couldn't afford to let any of the missiles pass him and impact on Earth; he didn't know what it would do to the planet. He was already worried about the bits from the earlier explosions that would fall into the atmosphere.

The other alien technologies were bad enough, the thirty-odd shuttle-like machines that had come down a few days ago and started harvesting Earth's resources. They'd totally ignored the humans, and instead settled in areas around the world to siphon water, drill for minerals, clearing trees like they were so much grass. Humans had done their own fair share of clear-cutting and fracking and blasting to exploit the natural goods, but it was nothing compared with this sheer overwhelming ruthlessness and efficiency of the alien ships. Hundreds of humans had been killed just by being in the way, and also with the natural disasters that were starting up in the wake of the disturbances. 

They'd initially tried fighting the harvesting machines, and found that while they could do some damage, the machines mostly ignored them, clearing out an area, then going on to another. Eventually, one then another returned to the mother ship and then came down again, leading the Earth's attention to the larger ship out there in orbit, half the size of the moon. Pleas had gone out, weapons deployed. Both had been ignored and brushed off. 

Superman had gone up to negotiate, but had been ignored like the rest. It wasn't until he disabled a returning harvester and prevented it from unloading its materials that the ship turned its attention on him. From that point, it had been attack. No communication, just flat out attack and Superman trying his best to defend. His uniform was torn and his cape in strips, showing the effect of the missile. 

Grabbing the missile, Superman didn't try and stop it, but redirected it instead, pushing at an angle until it was turned around and headed for the sun. If anything got in the way between the missile and the sun, Clark wasn't going to worry about it too much. As long as it didn't hit Earth.

Clark gave a worried glance towards Earth. Something down there was attracting his attention, but he was too far away and busy out here for it to get much more than a pull of his mind. 

Another missile sped out his way. This time, Clark intercepted it early and turned it. He then flew up and around so he was no longer between the ship and Earth. 

He looked at the large ship almost eclipsing the world behind it in his foreshortened view. Why would anybody come and do this? Why wouldn't they talk? They seemed to barely even notice the people... automated or just utterly indifferent? He'd x-rayed the ship and seen people, a alien version of people, inside, so not completely automated. Still, though, they didn't seem to care.

He looked at the world beyond the ship, the beautiful green-blue gem that he loved so much. His home. Maybe not his birth parents' home, but it was his and he would defend it to his last dying drop.

That something that had called to him earlier returned to his thoughts and he focused his vision, seeing the clouds come into focus then through them, zooming in until he saw the plane. It was a smaller plane, a courier rather than a passenger, the nose pointing towards the mountains and smoke coming from the engines. It was hard to tell from here what had happened to it, just that it was crashing and Clark was too far away to do anything about it. Still, it called.

Feeling helpless already, Clark focused his vision to the plane, not knowing why, with a world in danger and people dying everywhere, that his attention was here. Then he sucked in his breath as he saw who was inside that plane and he prepared to fly. He may not be able to get there in time, but he had to try. He had to.

A missile exploded on his chest, knocking him back and concussing him to near unconsciousness. Closing his eyes, he concentrated on stabilizing his body, coming out of the spin the blast had put him into and stopping his momentum. There were no directions in space, only his own focus and inner directions. 

When he wasn't moving anymore, Superman took an anguished glance towards Earth. 

What benefit to saving a single person, when a world would die? If he saved a person now, and the world died around them, would not that person also die? Nobody would thank him, not even the person he saved... especially not that one. It was probably already too late. 

Clark yearned to dive down as fast as he could, breaking sound barriers and even light barriers if he could. Anything to make it on time. But that would leave his world exposed and unprotected. There were three more missiles the ship had just launched, and if he left, they would go unchallenged until they exploded on Earth. For these missiles were aimed at Earth.

The ship had changed its tactics, no longer going against Superman alone. Apparently Earthlings had made themselves too much of a pest and pests needed to be destroyed. 

With a scream that couldn't be heard in the vacuum of space, Superman sped towards the missiles and not towards the world. Part of his mind still was on the airplane, but he couldn't... he just couldn't.

One missile turned, then another. Part of his attention saw the plane crashing onto a mountain-side in the Himalayans. Silently yelling his rage and pain, Superman flung the last missile straight at the ship. 

For several seconds, Clark felt nothing but the pain of knowing his past to be lost, never more to be his future again. Yes, they had fought, bitterly at times. But as long as the other was still there, still in his life somehow, there was a possibility. Now, there would be none. It hurt more than he had thought it might.

Then Superman looked towards the ship that was turning ponderously away, attempting evasive action without much time or room to do it in, and he realized what he had done.

With a gulp, Superman flew with all his speed towards the missile he'd redirected. It was coming close to the ship. He wasn't sure if he'd make it on time. But his fingertips were on it now and if he could just push it... there. Another heave and the missile was streaking somewhere else off in space. Clark hoped desperately that it and the others wouldn't impact onto anything important in the solar system. Quickly, he calculated the Earth's orbit and speed and the approximate speed and angles of the missiles as he remembered them, checking to make sure they wouldn't hit Earth again in a half-year or so. He would have to check with other solar objects when he got back to the Fortress.

For now, though, a return to battle. Superman swung around and prepared to face the alien ship again. 

He frowned. 

The ship was... lurching. If that could be a term used for something in space and not in gravitational seas. It was continuing its last evasive action movement, but there was something off about the way it was moving, compared with how it had faced him while attacking.

There was an explosion on one side of the ship, debris blasting out, and flames shooting into space before they were extinguished. Then another explosion. Then the ship rolled. 

His mouth agape, Superman x-rayed through the ship for any indication of what might have happened. Where before he had seen a few bi-pedal aliens in what was probably the command center and some other locations (fewer than he would have thought were needed for a space journey), now he saw the command center a blackened twisted mess inside the ship, other areas worse. He couldn't see a single living being left within the ship.

He searched. They might have been trying to exploit Earth and kill humans, but that didn't mean he could leave them to die. They were, though, all dead. It seemed like some sort of cosmic karma. That last evasive action they'd taken to avoid their own missile had broken their ship. They had pushed something beyond capacity, and it had gone up. Not a soul left alive.

Superman tried to feel bad... but he couldn't. He sorrowed in general for the loss of life, but he honestly cared more for all the humans that had died as a result of whatever it was the aliens had been doing. Most particularly, for one human.

Shutting his eyes for a long moment, Clark tried hard not to think that if he'd just killed the aliens at the start, he might have been able to save more lives. That wasn't ... that _couldn't_ be the point. Not ever for him. Not if he wanted to continue to serve people and not to rule them. 

With another long sigh, Superman flew towards the ship, figuring out in his mind the proper angles and velocity he would need to throw it for it to hit the sun. It would take days to get there, but he didn't want it just laying around inside the solar system. The missiles were too powerful and there was too much danger. Earth was not united and there was too much risk. 

After he'd thrown the ship at the sun, Superman flew back to Earth. The aliens might be dead, but their machines had caused a lot of havoc and there was still much to be done.

... ... ...

Five days went by. 

One rescue after another, one clean up after another. The mining had set off a volcano in Europe that had rained ash over the continent. Another drill had melted huge portions of the Arctic, flooding the northern-most countries. Clark didn't even want to think about what had happened to the Fortress; he'd check it later. So much damage, so many people hurt.

Yet, for all of those five days, there was only one life that really mattered. Every time Clark rescued somebody, every time he didn't, it was there in the back of his mind, in the front of his thoughts. A life that wasn't there.

After Smallville, Lex and his dad had fought so badly, Lionel leading his son into more and more dirty tricks and the darker shades of barely legal and non-legal dealings. Clark had watched in dismay and disapproval, not hesitating to make his views known. Lex hadn't appreciated it, and had made that known in turn. They had parted ways, fighting almost as bitterly as the Luthors. 

Lex defeated Lionel and exiled him to jail. Superman appeared in the skies. Their interaction had been more restrained, though with its own sharp edges. Lex didn't like aliens and didn't trust Superman. Clark wrote articles describing LexCorp atrocities. There were, though, less of those than there had been. Without Lionel around, Lex had been slowly moving his companies to safer, more legal ways. 

The last interview they'd had, just a week before the invasion... Clark had gone in ready to listen. Lex had been willing to bend. And there had been a connection. A tentative connection, a fragile connection, but it was something that hadn't been there since they were young.

Clark had gone away hoping. For all the people in his life who loved him -- through Lana, through Lori, through Lois, there had always been something missing. Partly it was his secrets and his responsibilities. Partly though, it was because Clark had never stopped loving Lex. It had been a helpless love, originally because of their age, and then because of Lex's dealings, but love wasn't rational, it just was. 

Now, though...

Clark scrunched up his eyes and wondered where his tears were. They would have been a detriment to everything he had to do, yet he missed them, missed what they would mean. He missed Lex.

There was still more to be done. More rescues, more ground work, more doing.

But there was something else. Not something urgent, yet something he had to do.

After he finished up with another rescue, Superman flew off. Nobody would miss him. They would think he was off at another rescue. They wouldn't look for him. 

He flew to the Himalayans but after roaming the mountain range for an hour he realized this wasn't working. He'd seen the plane go down, but the world wasn't marked with latitude and longitude positions; the perspective was too different and there was too much to search. He changed his method.

Superman flew up into space. There was no alien spaceship up here anymore and he had a moment of disorientation as he was caught between the past and present. All was quiet. Very quiet.

He looked out towards the sun and the journey the dead alien ship had been on. Then he resolutely turned away and back to Earth. He tried to remember the plane; there was no problem, it was engrained in his soul. 

He dove down into the world, like he hadn't been able to days ago. The opportunity was gone, but as he flew he thought he might. He knew he couldn't, but it was there. Not quite a pretense as much as a wish.

There.

A plane, crumpled upon the slopes. Wings broken, one of them a thousand feet up. The plane had obviously slid down the steep ridge after it had hit, snow and rocks scraped in lines down the mountain, a line to the remnants. Of which... the plane was surprisingly intact. Other than the broken wings and tail, it looked like it hadn't suffered much externally. Internally, though, it must have been pretty bad, as evidenced by the graves outside the plane.

Graves outside the plane? Superman flew more slowly down, hovering and then alighting lightly as he studied them. More cairns than graves. Rocks and snow piled up in circular domes, with the snow packed and carved with names. Nine cairns altogether. Three of them even had religious symbols, two Christian crosses and an Islamic crescent and star.

Clark started reading the names, but inside he was restraining a hope that wanted to emerge. Somebody had to be alive to bury the others. Somebody.

"Superman."

There it was. That voice. The voice he'd been thinking about for the whole week. Thinking he'd never hear it again. Yet here he was, hearing it.

Clark turned around.

Lex stood there, in front of the plane, dressed in slacks and a turtleneck sweater and a heavy dark overcoat. What skin could be seen was unmarked, though it had been nearly a week. Clark knew enough of Lex's mutant healing not to expect bruises to still be around. Internal injuries might take longer, but Lex was standing tall and he looked fairly strong. He was thin, with that gauntness that suggests a recent fasting rather than a long-term lack of food.

What wasn't there was any sort of welcome. There was a guarded look in his eyes and a definite wariness in his manner.

Any comparison Clark had with that day at the farm twelve years ago vanished in an instant. He'd wanted to rush into Lex's arms and hold him again, rejoicing in his aliveness. Yet Lex called him 'Superman' and he wasn't looking at Clark the way he had back then.

Clark swallowed. "Lex."

Lex walked up beside him, not venturing too close, his attention on the graves. "Nobody else is left. Dave lived for a couple of days, but he was too hurt."

Clark winced. He hadn't thought anybody would be alive at all. If he'd flown over sooner...

"It wouldn't have helped. He was broken inside. All a hospital would have done would have been to make him more comfortable." Lex exercised the general ability he had to figure out what people were thinking. "You had more important things to do. How is the war?"

War? Well, it was sort of a war. Between humans and aliens – other aliens than Clark. The human deaths were incidental to the resource mining, though that had not helped the humans. Or the aliens. Clark closed his eyes. "I killed them." 

There was a skeptical silence around him.

Clark opened his eyes again. "I was fighting them in space and their ship... they must have done something wrong. There were internal explosions and then they were all dead."

There was a small snort from Lex. "You do realize that nobody but you is going to feel sorry for that." Lex paused. "And I'm not sure why you feel bad either."

Clark grimaced. If Lex knew that Clark was Superman, Lex would know why he felt bad. But Lex had always thought of Superman as an alien threat, somebody with unknown morals and who could turn upon Earth in a moment when it suited his alien whims. 

"I don't like killing, and we were never able to talk to them."

Lex shrugged, then went back to the original topic. "So everything else...? Their machines did a lot of damage."

"Yeah." Clark thought back over the last several days. He wasn't even sure how to answer Lex. "Things are... recovering."

"I'm honestly surprised that my plane made your rescue list, with how much you had to do." 

"When I was in orbit, fighting the aliens, I saw your plane crashing. I had to come and see. I didn't think anybody would have survived, I'm sorry."

"After the volcanic ash from the eruption killed the engines and our plane stalled, Dave managed to pull the nose up long enough to lose a lot of our velocity. That and I believe the angle of the slope and the way we hit preserved the cockpit." Lex was silent for a moment. "The odds were very much against it."

Clark looked at the nose of the plane, which was pointing upslope, the way the plane had skidded around. It looked in pretty good shape compared with the rest of the plane. Opposite how things normally went in airplane crashes. Lex's luck held again – for him. It didn't seem to do much for the people around him, and Clark felt a pang of sympathy. Clark also was not always a good person to be near.

"We should get going," Clark said finally. "We can mark the coordinates for later. Is there anything you want to bring with you?"

Lex regarded the graves, then turned towards the plane. "Just a moment." He went in through the rear hatch door, shutting it behind him. 

When he came out, Lex had a backpack and a carry-on luggage case. Clark raised an eyebrow.

"Selected personal effects of the deceased for their next of kin," Lex explained briefly. "Plus the research I've been working on." He glanced towards the cockpit. "I wish I could bring the radio – I've been making a lot of modifications to try and increase range and channels, but I wrote down all my notes. It might be useful for future designs."

Of course Lex hadn't just been sitting around waiting for help. Clark grinned a little, involuntarily. Then he stepped over to gather up Lex and his luggage.

And nothing happened.

Clark blinked and then tried again. Still nothing. He let go of Lex and took a few steps back and tried to fly. He couldn't... it just wasn't there, gravity held him. He looked over at the plane and couldn't see through it. He took a few more steps away and tried that second-oldest of his powers, his speed, and that failed him as well.

With a fury born out of fear, he turned on Lex. "What did you do?!"

Lex was frowning, his attention focused on Clark as Clark had gone through his trials. At Clark's accusation, he blinked and then tilted his head to one side. "Fair enough assumption, I suppose. I've tried hard enough in the past to find something to neutralize you. You have too much power for a single person. It would, however, be idiotic of me to do something now. Being stuck here with a five week supply of food is not my life's ambition."

Despite his fear, Clark was caught by Lex's words. Five week supply of food? It was a fairly small plane with ten people and a short trip. Considering how thin Lex was already, he must have rationed out the food for the absolute minimum a person could survive on. Perhaps a bit less, relying on his healing to compensate somewhat.

Clark sighed, giving up his brief flirt with the thought Lex might have done something. It wasn't Lex, at least not directly. He looked around the area, trying to see with normal sight. He'd had his powers before he got here, and now he didn't. What was here? He paced around, looking at the ground, studying the rocks.

"Kryptonite?" Lex also strode out, his gaze sharp upon the surroundings. "You don't look like you're in pain."

"I'm not. It's not green, whatever it is."

Lex stopped dead. "There are different varieties?"

Shoot. Clark hadn't meant to let that slip. He grimaced and kept checking.

"I can't help if I don't know what I'm looking for," Lex said with exasperation.

"I don't know," Clark replied heatedly. "I don't know. I just..." He was starting to feel the cold on his face and his hands. His uniform was built to resist extremes and the cape could be used to shelter normal people, which he now was, apparently. There were different varieties of kryptonite, yes, but none of them he knew of could do something like this. However, he kept finding new ones, so he didn't know. "Magical items can affect me, though not reliably."

"Magic?" Lex's voice sharpened in disbelief. 

Clark knew some of the things Lex had dabbled in, and he shot a return disbelieving look at Lex. His disbelief was rooted in the idea that Lex would even say that.

Lex caught the look and held his attitude for a few moments longer before he capitulated and grinned instead. It lit up his whole face, bright and friendly. "Worth a try."

Why had their friendship ever broken? Cark missed that grin, turned upon him, shared experiences and perfect understanding. Damn the lies.

They both searched around the plane area for a few hours, looking for anything that might be causing Superman's loss of powers. Clark tried periodically, at varying distances from the plane, but he still couldn't fly. At one point, he thought he might have used his x-ray vision, but after he blinked he couldn't so it must have been his imagination.

"We should go inside," Lex finally said, with a glance up to the darkening skies. "The temperature drops dramatically without the sun."

Clark agreed. He'd been breathing on his hands for the last hour, unused to the chill, and there was nothing to show for all their searching. His nose was cold. His nose hadn't been cold since he was a kid. Even though he'd lost his power several times over the years for one reason or another, he'd never lost them while on a freezing snowy mountain at high altitude. It made a difference. He tried to remember the sensations to store up for the next time he wasn't human again.

They went to the tail of the plane and entered through the rear hatch. There was only just the room for the two of them before there was another hatch. Not standard issue. It looked like it had been cobbled together from somewhere else, possibly the cargo hold area. Despite the obvious improvisation, it seemed to be sturdy and well fitting. They went through the second door and there was a third one. 

"What's with the doors?" Clark asked.

"Insulation," Lex replied briefly. He put his coat on a hook and took off his boots. He glanced over at Clark and narrowed his eyes. 

"Um," Clark's instinctive manners tried to take over, but there wasn't much he had. He unhooked his cape.

"No, keep it," Lex unexpectedly said. "The boots too. Your costume hasn't picked up any snow at all, even on the seams, and from the way you've been wandering around in it outside it obviously has excellent thermal coverage."

"Uniform."

Lex raised an eyebrow as he stripped off his socks and then put two new pairs on plus new boots that were obviously more for indoors. Also not his own, since they were too big and a red color that Lex Luthor would never be seen in.

"It's a uniform, not a costume," Clark sighed. It was a sore point with him, though not one he expressed very often.

Lex stood up and opened the next door. "Fair enough, though I do wonder I haven't heard it before. The newspaper articles and the museum exhibit all call it a costume."

Clark winced. "They also named me Superman. I don't have much say in what the press says."

There weren't any more doors. The rest of the inside was normal plane space. Though there was obviously a project in progress to cover all the windows and several vertical areas with more salvaged plane parts. The vertical areas were cracks that had been roughly patched already but needed more work. 

"Really?" Lex snorted. "You need a PR person. You never, ever, let the media dictate what they say. They'll write it, but you feed them what they should have. Sometimes it comes out garbage, so you have to pick the reporters who are good at what they do. Give them eggs and most will make omelets but some will make soufflés."

Clark wasn't sure if he was insulted for his profession or not. Even though Lex and he argued bitterly, Lex Corp still regularly had Lois and Clark in as invited reporters to cover press announcements and other events. So he made soufflés? He couldn't even cook.

But he was Superman at the moment, not Clark Kent. "I rescue people and help where I can. That's not PR, that's what I do. I'm not doing things for the publicity."

Lex shook his head and got out some plastic wrapped items. He handed one to Clark. "If you really think it's a uniform, you shouldn't let them label it a costume. It's how you approach what you do, and how the world sees what you do." He lifted one shoulder and dropped it in a partial shrug. "I had no idea, and you and I have had words on more than one occasion. We've fought, and I saw you as a costumed menace."

"So now I'm a uniformed menace?" Clark unwrapped the pre-packaged meal. Instinctively, he tried to heat it up, but his heat vision still wasn't working.

Lex huffed out a little laugh. "Uniform implies a duty, a job, a responsibility. Costume implies frivolity and something that can be taken off as easily as the next. You have never before denied it as a costume."

"Cirque du Soleil performers may not appreciate that description of their costumes," Clark pointed out, before chewing on a slightly frozen meat patty. Heated was much better. Lex did, however, have a point on the terminology. Clark was used to separating his two jobs and hadn't ever considered the hazards of terminology with his "superhero" status. He didn't think much of that term either, but had never done anything about it.

Nibbling on a carrot, Lex waved that aside. "That could be the same argument made for your outfit. Whose views are the most valid – the audience looking on, or the people wearing them? Besides, they put on several different costumes throughout a performance, depending on what scene is being played. It's part of the entertainment. A police officer does not change his uniform, unless he or she gets promoted."

Clark noticed that Lex's meal, unlike his own, had already been partially eaten. And Lex was already finishing up his few carrots and single bite of meat and wrapping it up again. He stared longingly at his own meal, three-fourths eaten just in their conversation and nowhere near satisfying his hunger. Forcing himself to put down the bread, he tried to wrap it up, but he'd been less cautious than Lex in opening it and couldn't.

"Go ahead and finish it," Lex said. "It won't really make any difference anyhow. The cold is going to get us long before the food is gone."

Clark looked pointedly at Lex's own sparse meal. 

Lex shrugged. He was silent for several long moments and then he shrugged again. He got out a spare plastic bag, wrapped Clark's meal in it, then put both of them away in the cooler again.

They talked for awhile about other things. The conversation was wide-ranging and stimulating, covering many topics and sometimes getting heated, but always with logic and supporting background to each side. 

It was close, very close, to what they used to have, and it was driving Clark crazy; Lex wasn't talking to Clark, he was talking to Superman. There was a reserve in his manner, a distance between them, a coolness in his eyes, even when he was smiling or sharing a joke. 

When they'd been young, Lex had never been that guarded, not to Clark. Even nowadays, if he was talking to Clark Kent, the reporter, Lex had many things in his gaze – annoyance, anger, skepticism, mockery – but he was never indifferent to Clark. 

Clark had the impression that even though they were having a good conversation, that this was all part of a day's work for Lex, part of the politics and the boardroom, the art of being social. Superman could be anybody he was trapped in a small plane in the middle of the Himalayans with. 

It was a weird feeling, to know that Clark as himself rated higher on Lex's scale than Superman did. He didn't think that had ever happened with anybody before. His mom, maybe, but then, his mom knew who he was.

They also were poking at each other, taking this opportunity with just the two of them to find out more about the other. Lex was asking questions about Superman and his motives and power. Mostly subtly, never coming right out and saying it, though if the conversation went that way he didn't forego the blunt. Clark took the opportunity to question Lex right back, asking about Lionel and the company and pointedly remarking on some of Lex's less-than-legal actions that Superman had broken up in years previous. 

When they finally said 'goodnight' and gathered airplane blankets to curl up in first class airplane seats to sleep, Clark was both happy and frustrated. He thought they had made some real progress in understanding each other, no longer just the alien menace nor the corporate raider.

But... It wasn't him. It was Superman. While this was good, because it got Lex thinking, it was the lie. The lie that had defined their youth. Clark wanted to tear the last bandage off, no matter how painful and tell Lex who he was. Lex lied too, though, and Clark didn't necessarily trust him. He wanted to, but the stakes were high. What if Lex was angry at him? Lex could hurt him badly, and not just him but his mom and his friends. It could put Lex in danger. Superman's identity was secret for a reason.

It hurt. It always hurt. Every time the question came up with people that Clark wanted to be friends or more with. It had ruined as many relationships as Clark had ever tried to start. 

Even if he and Lex could start getting along as Clark and Lex or as Superman and Lex, it would not be enough.

Clark curled up in his cape and tiredly went to sleep.

... ... ... 

The next day, he woke up warm and comfortable. Clark blinked at the ceiling in the airplane and then focused and looked through it to the clouds. He smiled and floated up from the seat.

"I take it your powers are back," Lex said in dry tones.

Clark floated back down and smiled beatifically at Lex, who was sitting close to the cockpit, with wires and tools all around him.

"You can stop working on the radio," Clark announced. "How do you test it anyhow, without power?"

"There's a bit of power, I'm just keeping it for emergencies. This wasn't the radio; that's in the cockpit." Lex made a final adjustment to whatever it was he'd been working on, which he didn't explain, then stood up, brushing at his pants. "Do you want breakfast, or just to go?"

"No offense to your food, but I think I'd like to get breakfast at home." Clark was still hungry from the bites from last night.

Lex smiled. "None taken." He gathered up the backpack and suitcase he'd had the day before. "Let's go."

They exited through the multiple doors, Lex putting on his boots and coat along the way. 

Outside, Clark grasped Lex, completely professionally, and flew up. 

Clark didn't start off fast, looking down at the plane and the cairns around it. He flew a little ways up the mountain, following the skid marks until he could see where the plane had first bounced. It was amazing that Lex had survived. In his arms, Lex was quiet, not saying anything, though he looked.

With a gulp, Clark turned from the mountain and started more seriously to fly away.

Then... gone.

His powers were gone again, just like that. Mid-flight and carrying the most precious cargo ever. 

Clark spent a costly second or two in disbelief, then he tried everything he could to get his flight back. Pressing upon gravity in a demand for it to release him. Gravity was stronger. 

Gravity was also trying to take Lex from him. Clark wrapped his arms more tightly around Lex and refused to be separated. They were falling fast, and Clark didn't know if they would have more chance on their own, but if he let Lex go and then regained his powers.... He held onto Lex. Then there was the ground.

Pain, sharp and sudden, more direct and instant than any kryptonite ever had been. Then whiteness that faded into nothing.

... ... ...

Clark woke up in pain. He was nauseated and the pain kept spiking through his head and body like several sharp stakes being jabbed in and out. It felt like the world was spinning around him. He opened his eyes to see black in front of him and brightness out on the edges. There was something pinning his legs. He started to turn his head to look around but then started violently heaving, trying to throw up.

With a thump, the binding around his legs loosened and he was dropped into the snow. Then a hand soothed him over, turning his head so the little bit of liquid and stomach bile that was in him didn't splatter on him. 

Oddly, throwing up made him feel a bit better. Clark opened his eyes again. 

"Lex?" That man could survive anything. Clark felt instantly better seeing him alive. It had been in his head that neither of them would have survived the fall, but he didn't think he could have gone on living if he had lived and Lex had died.

"Superman. How are you feeling?" Lex hoarsely replied. He was a mass of bruises, purple and blue and green and yellow all over. Bruises that looked like they were several days old instead of probably only hours. He was holding himself in such a way that said he hurt. Clark couldn't tell where Lex was hurt, but he obviously was. 

"I..." Clark wasn't going to say something as mundane as 'I hurt', no matter how true it was; Lex wasn't his mother, after all. "I think I'm better." The world wasn't spinning around quite as much anymore, at least.

Lex studied him dubiously but let him have the lie. There wasn't that much to say, after all. He glanced away, giving Clark a moment to himself.

Clark needed that moment. He'd nearly killed Lex, assuming without reason that his powers were back to stay when they didn't know what had caused it in the first place. He curled up, intending to sit back, but then he involuntarily yelped as another spike of pain struck.

"What is it?" Lex was instantly by his side, kneeling in the snow.

"My ankle," Clark said, reaching for the offending limb. The pain radiated out. "My leg..." But mostly his ankle. Clark could feel his skin going clammy and cold as shock rolled over him. He wondered if it was broken. His side also hurt as he breathed in. Cracked ribs? His head hurt. 

"Leave the boot on," Lex ordered. "It'll contain the swelling. We won't be able to do anything about it until we get back to the plane."

"Back to..." Clark lifted his head and glanced around. They were... he couldn't tell a thing from where he was curled up in the snow. Couldn't see anything past the snow and the rocks.

Lex stood up, looking to his left. "We've been following the plane marks. It was a good thing you flew along that path initially. We're probably about four, five hours away."

"We?" Clark certainly didn't remember doing anything other than passing out.

"Can you put any weight on it at all?" Lex ignored Clark's question.

Clark reached up to take Lex's hand that was being held out to him. He tried to get up, but every time he tried to stand, the pain forced him to stop. Gritting his teeth, Clark tried again, forcing it. The pain washed up and over him, blanking everything out.

He came back to himself with the same swaying motion he remembered from earlier. This time, he held back his nausea and opened his eyes with determination. If he could fight criminals, he could do this.

Black. With brightness off to the sides. Clark carefully turned his head. He saw snow and sky, he thought, but he couldn't tell because it wasn't right. He tried to move and then everything stopped.

More gently than before, he was lowered to the ground, and Clark suddenly realized he was upside down. Then he wasn't, and he was in the snow again, rolling over and putting himself upright.

"Are you going to throw up again?" Lex asked indifferently. He was crouching near Clark, looking at him without any obvious emotion in his face.

Clark blinked. He studied Lex, trying to figure out... "You were carrying me?" Fireman's carry. Hips over the shoulder. Clark had been waking up looking at Lex's butt. Or the coat that covered Lex's butt. The confinement on his legs had been Lex's arm bracing him.

Lex grimaced. "There's nothing around to make a travois with." His voice was still rough with whatever damage he'd taken earlier.

Clark was impressed with Lex's fortitude and adeptness and just who he was, period. It was a bit like falling in love all over again. 

Despite the obvious problems, Lex had gone through the available options, made plans, then put them into action. Leaving Superman had obviously not been on the agenda, despite the reduction in the odds it made for Lex's own survival. A cynical person could also say that Superman was Lex's only way out, if he ever regained his powers, and that would be true, but it didn't cover the whole of Lex.

"I'm sorry," Clark said, meaning the apology sincerely.

"Not your fault," Lex relied briefly.

It was, but Clark had learned long ago the futility of arguing with Lex about it. Instead, he asked, "Is there anything at all I can do to help?" A busted ankle precluded most of the options, but he had to try.

A grin flitted over Lex's face. "Weigh less," he answered.

Clark snorted. "I didn't have breakfast this morning, that's a start."

The two of them smiled at each other and Clark could feel his heart thumping inside his chest. Maybe, just maybe, Superman could be friends with Lex. It wouldn't be like it had been with Clark and Lex, but it could be something. 

Lex looked away first, glancing towards the sun. "We have to go. Can you handle it?"

Four or five hours back to the plane, where there was shelter. If they were still outside when the sun went down, they were dead. "I'm sorry," Clark said again. 

"I've had a lot more people try to kill me on purpose then by accident," Lex laughed. "It's a refreshing change of pace."

Clark couldn't help it, he both laughed and winced at the same time. That was Lex. 

Reaching his arms out, Clark silently invited to be picked up. It reminded him of when he was a kid asking for rides from his dad. 

The smile still on his face, Lex knelt down in front of Clark, slightly to his right. He leaned a bit forward. Clark obediently rose to his knees and reached into the air over Lex's left shoulder. He tried not to wince as Lex pushed his shoulder into Clark's stomach before lifting Clark up and over his shoulder in one movement, then rose from the ground in another, grunting with the effort. 

It took everything that Clark had not to fight the utterly helpless position. That and not to throw up either as his head was spinning horribly. 

What did he do with his arms? They were dangling down uselessly. Clark tried to raise them, but a wobble from Lex told him that that wasn't the best for balance and he quickly tried not to do anything. Dead weight, but at least not weight actively trying to sabotage Lex. He knew that logically this was the position to allow for the easiest way to carry somebody no matter what their weight and allowed for the person doing the carrying to still have some control. Firemen used it when rescuing people out of burning buildings – pick them up and run out; which is why it was called the fireman's carry. But still, Clark outweighed Lex in both literal poundage and also general mass. He was impressed that Lex was able to carry him, especially when Lex was certainly hurt from the fall as well.

They didn't talk on that long, long walk.

It took all of Clark's concentration to deal with the pain. His head felt like there were jackhammers inside it and every movement, every sound, even his own breath was a bullet through his brain. He wondered if this was a migraine. He'd heard about them but never experienced one before. His foot hurt too, but it was almost a relief when he could concentrate on that pain as a distraction from the other. 

Lex let him down periodically either to switch shoulders, get Clark a drink, let Clark throw up, or simply to let Lex rest. Through the bruises, Lex's pale skin was turning from a normal light cream color to a distinctly unhealthy light grey.

Still, Lex carried on. Literally. 

Even in his own thoughts, Clark couldn't help smiling at the pun. He'd tell Lex about it later – he was sure Lex would laugh as well. He wanted to hear Lex's laugh again, see Lex's smile. Even when he'd thought that Lex was a bad person, Clark hadn't been able to shake his love for Lex. Faced with Lex's undeniable good traits, Clark fell just that much more.

They got to the plane hours before the sunset and just about exactly on Lex's estimate. Which told Clark that Lex had based his estimate on needing to carry Clark the whole time, unconscious or otherwise.

Stumbling through the hatches, Lex had to put Clark down, not able to maneuver in with the extra bulk. That was okay, with something to brace himself against, Clark could somewhat stand, though was still unable to put any weight on his ankle. Almost definitely broken. 

There was a moment when Clark thought Lex might have gone directly through all three doors, but with a wobble in his balance, and an out loud sigh, Lex took off his coat with slow, careful movements, then did his boots too. He almost fell over when trying to get off his boots. Clark instinctively started to reach out to help then had to clutch at the wall again to prevent his own collapse. 

Lex didn't, this time, put new boots on, but rather after that just padded straight back, helping Clark to hop along. Clark was careful not to hop on Lex's feet.

At their seats, they both collapsed down and just sat there for long moments.

After a few minutes, Lex sat up with a groan. He fumbled around with some of the containers around him and eventually pulled out a few small packets. He tossed one to Clark.

Clark looked at it curiously.

"Heat pack," Lex explained. "Tear open the plastic and pull it out and shake it up and it'll start warming up. They're good for 40 hours."

Knowing how few of them there must be, Clark hesitated.

"Do it," Lex commanded, tearing his own open. "We're both frozen, and even though we're in shelter, it's not heated shelter. We need to maintain body temperature or getting back to the plane was all for naught."

Clark opened the package and waved it around, exposing it to the air and letting the chemical reactions start. "Shall we share body heat too?" 

Lex dropped his heat pack and stared at Clark.

Clark blushed. He hadn't meant that to come out quite as suggestive as it had sounded.

"You really remind me of somebody, sometimes..." Lex chuckled and leaned down to retrieve his packet.

"Somebody good?" Clark couldn't help himself.

There was a long pause from Lex. "The best," he finally whispered softly, so low that Clark with his currently normal human hearing could barely hear it.

Clark gulped.

With a shake of his head, as if to clear his thoughts, Lex started rummaging through containers again. He pulled out a pair of meals and tossed one at Clark. "Eat the whole thing this time. I am too. We need it."

They ate their meals and then drifted off to sleep, Lex curled up on Clark's unhurt side. They weren't quite macho enough to freeze to death from stubbornness, but there wasn't anything sexy about it. At least not on Lex's side. Clark kept thinking of the butt that had been in front of his face all day. The woven black cloth of the coat, mostly, but it was imagination that had gotten him through some of the worst parts of the migraine. 

Obnoxious beeping woke Clark up and he could hear Lex stirring next to him. Then the beeping stopped. Clark turned over to look. "You set your watch?"

Lex yawned. The bruises on his face were already starting to look better. "You have a concussion, and I wanted to make sure we were warm enough. If we were too cold, we could die while sleeping and never know it." His voice sounded better too, barely a hint of the roughness that had coated it yesterday. Earlier. Whatever. 

Clark grabbed Lex's wrist and pulled it to where he could see the numbers. "Three hours?" No wonder Clark still felt dead.

With a shrug, Lex reclaimed his wrist and crawled out of the chair.

Clark watched him putter around the cabin. Lex was moving a lot better too. His healing powers were amazing. It was no surprise anymore that Lex had survived the crash. Clark only wondered how badly he'd been hurt in it originally.

Closing his eyes again, Clark didn't quite fall back asleep, but he let the sounds of Lex doing whatever he was doing lull him into a meditative state.

… … …

"Superman."

There should be a different name with that voice. Clark didn't respond.

A sound of a chuckle. "Well, you did say the newspapers named you that. I wonder what your native name is?"

That pried open Clark's eyelids. If Lex had worded it any other way, Clark might have automatically responded, but there was still 'alien' in Lex's phrasing, if not the distrust he'd formally had. "Kal-El." Clark gave him a part of the truth. Not the real truth, but the alien truth. 

"Kalal," Lex repeated. Then he paused and said it again with the slight pause between the syllables, "Kal-El." He tilted his head. "That's not a very alien name."

Clark couldn't help it, he laughed. Here was finally Lex's inquisitive nature coming out. He'd been restraining himself for the last day, keeping things polite. 

"Sorry, that was uncalled for." Lex didn't blush, but he did turn his body very slightly away.

"No, it's all right." Clark sat up, wincing a little. He'd gotten used to his own rapid healing – he'd been hurt in battles before, but the hurt very rarely lasted longer than the battle or the removal of the kryptonite. This longer-lasting pain was miserable. "I'm not a very alien alien."

"No, you're not." Lex's voice was thoughtful, and somewhat reserved. Clark suspected he'd been reminded of some of his suspicions. 

Internally, he sighed, careful not to let the sound actually become verbal. He didn't blame Lex anymore, not after the number of times he'd had to fight other aliens, even some criminal Kryptonians. It was hard not to have his trust, but at the same time there were a lot of untrustworthy people out there. With Lex's background and knowing his father, how could Clark blame Lex for being cautious? Just because Lex didn't worship him like the Superman fans did... just because Lex was his own person? 

It had hurt when Clark was younger because he had thought he hadn't given any reason for distrust. Now, Clark realized he hadn't either given any reason to trust.

"What did---" Clark cut himself off before it sounded too ungracious. "You called me for something?" That sounded better.

Lex blinked, obviously having forgotten in his contemplation of the alien. "Ah... come join me in the cockpit for a bit. There's something you might want to see."

Clark levered himself out of the chair and held out a hand to ask for Lex's support.

Stepping up to him directly, Lex showed no signs of hesitation, no matter his thoughts on aliens. Lex frowned down at Clark's ankle. "We're going to have to make a splint for that. I wish we could take off your boot and see how bad it is, but I don't think it can be cut off."

"Ah, no." Nothing they had here could cut through the uniform and just thinking about pulling off the boot with his ankle the way it was made Clark a little faint. 

They hobbled to the cockpit and Lex opened the door and escorted Clark in.

Clark stopped dead just inside. There was blood all over the chamber. Old, dried blood, but a lot of it. A human body's worth of it. Clark remembered a week ago, seeing Lex inside the plane, here in this very cockpit, and thinking his death was inevitable as the plane crashed. Despite Lex standing right beside him, the pull of memory and the feeling of loss was strong. 

Lex had been sitting in the co-pilot's chair, and Lex had said the pilot had survived for a few days after the crash. The blood... all the blood in here had likely been Lex's. That answered the question of how badly he'd been hurt. Clark shuddered to think about it.

He had to remind himself that Lex was alive. Standing next to him, and very much alive. Clark reached out to touch Lex, just to make sure.

On the inside of the plane, there hadn't been anything nearly as noticeable to show that people had died there. Now that he thought about it, Clark realized that a lot of the plane was covered or hidden. Clothes over seats, boxes in locations that didn't quite make sense, the repairs using lots of sheet metal, probably more than necessary. 

Lex had been looking around as well, following Clark's gaze with the air of somebody seeing something for the first time. "Sorry," he apologized. "It was on my list to scrub out this part, but I hadn't gotten to that part yet."

It almost broke Clark's heart that Lex was apologizing. He forced his gaze away from the interior and looked out the window. "Wow..." He forgot about everything else, watching the display outside.

Outside in the sky, dancing with the sunset, was the most brilliant and gorgeous aurora display he'd ever seen.

He let himself be guided to a seat and sat without taking his eyes off the twisting colors outside. He'd seen a lot of auroras, and they amazed him every time. A phenomenon of nature that was beautiful and mysterious and always different. There had been a bit of a display yesterday during the daytime, but the milder yellow and orange colors had been lost in the sunlight and snow, and he'd been concentrating harder on Lex and the plane at that point. Right now, the twilight was making a background contrast that displayed the now green and blue streaks to their advantage. The swirls of color were dancing wildly, never standing still, in the midst of a wild dance club music set rather than a stately strains of martial classical music. 

"It's funny," Lex mused, "I hadn't heard about any expected sunspot activity this week. I know they can come on suddenly, but for a display this extreme, I would have thought there would be warning. Not that I've been checking my email for the last several days."

"What?" Clark's attention was hauled suddenly and abruptly off the display and onto Lex.

Lex quirked a grin. "When the sun flares are active, I see if there's any excuse for me to go to one of the northern research stations for that week. It's an indulgence."

"Sunspots?" Clark knew the science, he did, but his heart had dropped below his feet and his mind was numb.

"The aurora borealis is created by sun flares causing disruption in the magnetic---"

Clark cut him off. "I know that!"

Lex glared. "You asked!"

"I..." Clark looked out the window hopelessly. "I am such an idiot." He banged his head against the back of the chair. "Ouch. Oh God, I'm an idiot."

Lex arched his eyebrows.

"I did this to myself," Clark sighed and dropped his head in his hands.

After a few moments, Lex coughed. "Your powers?"

"I threw the bloody ship into the sun. Six... seven days ago. It must have hit the sun right after I got here. I couldn't have timed that any better if I'd planned it. Oh God, I'm an idiot." Clark was never throwing anything into the sun ever again. Never ever ever. 

Beside him, Lex was apparently connecting dots. "You get your powers from the sun?" A pause. "You're solar-powered?"

Clark lifted his head so he could glare a little at the smirk on Lex's lips. "My birth parents' home planet was an old red star. The yellow sun here is... invigorating to my race. I don't think they even knew what yellow sun could do." The criminals who had shown up were certainly surprised. But there was also that uneasy message from the ship. "My parents knew. That's why they sent me here when their planet was breaking up. But they were scientists. I don't think the others knew, though."

"I've always wondered about that story of yours," Lex mused. "If your race had space travel technology, and the planet was dying, why the hell didn't they just do a mass evacuation? Or if there wasn't the room, why not send more children? Why send a baby by itself?"

Clark paused. That _was_ rather weird. It was true, but it was weird. No wonder Lex didn't think much of his origin history. "I don't know."

"How can you not know?" Lex asked in disbelief.

"They didn't exactly send a history of Krypton with the ship! What they did send was more tending to... well, engineering and science. There's almost nothing in the files about culture or history. Only I can't even use most of the science because it's too advanced and I can't figure it out from what I learned here."

Lex huffed out a laugh. "Parents. Always thinking of their own interests and not about the children."

Between Lex's parents and Clark's birth ones, he agreed. His adoptive parents, though, were pretty darn awesome. He didn't mention that, though. Lex didn't know them, not Superman's.

"If you get disabled from solar flares, how come you're not hurt more often – they happen all the time."

"Normal ones don't bother me anymore, I think I've adapted. This, though..." Clark looked out at the light display. "Something the size of a small moon hit the sun. It was probably a doozy of a flare."

Lex paled. "Communications. Satellites. Airplanes. Something that large must have brought the planet's communication network down."

Clark was stricken with even more guilt. Numbly, he addressed at least part of it, "Airplanes are mostly still grounded. The volcanic ash and some of the other atmospheric problems from the mining. They were using helicopters in low flight patterns."

"That will help," Lex agreed. They both stayed silent about the other possible effects.

Suddenly, Lex lunged forward, his hands grabbing at the wires sticking out of the dashboard. "Communications!" He frantically started reconnecting wires, putting in circuit boards which had been laid to the side.

"Lex?" Clark watched him with a bit of bafflement.

"Magnetic reconnections. The aurora borealis has been known to have odd effects on electricity and radio waves. There're documented records of telegraphs working with no batteries running at all, and signals travelling further than they would normally."

He finished up some more wires then carefully put it back in and grabbed the mic. "S.O.S. This is flight Romeo Kila Lima Four Four Six, private flight out of Geneva, crash-landed at," Lex rattled off the latitude and longitude, then he hesitated and glanced at Clark before finishing, "two survivors. S.O.S." He repeated it twice more, then put up the microphone. "Ten minutes, I'll repeat." He set his watch, then glanced again at Clark with same hesitation and a bit tentatively. "Did you want to be identified as Superman?"

Clark blinked at him. Then he thought about all the rescue efforts going on right now and how much priority two people in a remote area would get, even if one of them was Lex Luthor. "Superman would get more priority on the rescue. You should do it." For Lex's sake.

Lex frowned. "The world shouldn't know you lose your powers sometimes. The word about kryptonite is out, but nobody knows about solar flares. I can create you an alternate ID and you'll have been on the flight."

"It really doesn't happen all that often," Clark offered, touched by the show of trust. They really had come a long way. "You should get rescued sooner."

"It's not worth the risk," Lex said definitely, then did something to the wires and disconnected them again. He glanced back at Clark, raising his chin as he did so.

Clark realized he wouldn't have any idea which wires to reconnect to put it back again. Lex had won that round when Clark hadn't even realized they were fighting. "You do that really well."

Lex snorted. "I've been on flights where the pilot was... disabled. After that, I learned to fly myself. I was the co-pilot for this flight, so I know this plane very well."

That hadn't been what Clark meant, but he let it go. It wasn't worth trying to explain, not to mention that if he did try and explain, he might piss Lex off. 

To top matters off, his migraine was returning. He'd never lost the headache, but compared with the horrible throbbing pain of the migraine... a headache was manageable. With all that had happened in the last half-hour, Clark could feel the edges of the migraine. Like a helmet slowly descending, ready to trap him in his own mind. The helmet of an iron maiden. 

Before it descended completely, Clark fumbled to get up. "I'm going back to my seat." Funny how quickly people adapted and claimed. 'His seat', 'Lex's seat'. 

"Your head?" Lex instantly turned sympathetic. He helped Clark to get back to the more comfortable seats, and once there, started rubbing Clark's head in a simple, soothing pattern. The pressure wasn't too much and it was gentle yet firm. 

Clark let out a sigh of relief that was on the verge of becoming a moan of ecstasy. If his head didn't hurt so much, this would be pure bliss. As it was, it staved off the worst of the migraine. Clark only wished Lex could keep doing it forever. 

"That feels good. How do you know how to do that?" 

With his eyes shut, Clark couldn't see Lex, yet he could hear the smile in his voice as he answered. "Girlfriends. Lots and lots of girlfriends, some whom really did have migraines and it wasn't just a way to get me into bed."

Clark snorted in laughter, then wished he hadn't.

"I wish I could take off this uniform," Clark said, surprising himself.

The fingers on his scalp paused. "I would have sworn your headache was one of the real ones. Sorry, you're not my type." 

The movements continued, apparently not planning on leaving because of a stupid statement, thank goodness.

"I didn't mean it like that," Clark mumbled. He was pretty sure he was blushing again too. It's not that he would object to doing anything with Lex – quite the opposite in fact. It was just... the migraine was real, though held at bay with magic Lex fingers. He grinned a little helplessly at the image.

"I want to ask you what you meant, but I should wait until you're feeling better." Lex's voice was a reassuring low murmur that didn't hurt at all.

Clark loved Lex so much. "The uniform has visual modification fibers threaded throughout the fabric. It changes what I look like so nobody actually sees me."

The fingers paused again, then resumed. "Hologram?"

"Something a bit more solid than light – it shows up in photos too. It's not an image I pick, it’s the image people see. My own base that then distorts by the viewers' expectations. I don't understand the technology entirely – it's one of those things that came with the ship."

"It's slightly disturbing that you're using technology you don't know."

Clark shrugged, then forced himself to hold still. "I try to use it as little as possible, but I needed a uniform that wouldn't burn off or get torn off, and the identity is also important, so my family doesn't get targeted by my enemies."

"You have family?" Lex sounded astonished.

"My mom. My friends. My coworkers." Clark took a breath and held it, keeping his eyes closed and putting all of his attention in the gentle stroking over his head. "Lex, I'm Clark."

This was the longest pause yet. The fingers still and unmoving on his forehead, tangled in his hair. The sound of Lex breathing. Nothing else. 

Then a long sigh from Lex and his hands were removed from Clark.

Clark started to worry, then felt a body settling into the seat beside him, arms wrapping around him, lips upon his cheek.

Opening his eyes finally, Clark had some trouble focusing but then could see the brilliant blue eyes close to his. Grey and blue and hints of green... incredible beautiful irises. A smile that raised the skin at the corners of the eyes and made the world right.

"I thought I wasn't your type?" Clark got out, somewhat breathless.

"Superman wasn't," Lex murmured, his hands ghosting over Clark's body, exploring and soothing. "You are." He kissed Clark again, this time on the lips. Gentle, not pushing.

Clark responded as much as he could. "I wish this wasn't a real headache."

Lex chuckled and settled in closer to Clark. "I wondered, you know. Everything from Smallville pointed to it, but I've talked to Superman, I've talked to you, and they were different. Would you let me have a sample of the fabric?"

"I'll introduce you to the A.I. computer that made it." Clark felt giddy with delight, floating without his powers. "You'll probably understand it a lot better than me."

"Don't sell yourself short," Lex warned. "You're smart and incredibly intelligent. If you hadn't had your formidable schooling years in a small backwater town without resources, and distracted with... everything in your teenager years, I think you'd be right up there with the best of my scientists."

"Really?" Clark had never thought of himself as particularly smart. 

"Definitely." Lex kissed Clark's cheek again, threading his fingers through Clark's hair in a stroking that was very different than what he'd been doing before. 

"Lex..." Clark laughed a little helplessly, completely disconcerted by all the cuddling.

"Indulge me," Lex whispered. "I've dreamed of this for years." 

"You believe me? How do you know I didn't mean a different Clark?"

Lex snorted. "One of the things that always disconcerted me about Superman was how familiarly he always addressed me. I thought it was an alien thing. This makes much more sense. Silly."

"I'm still an alien."

"An alien raised by Jonathan and Martha Kent. I think you're more human than I am, raised by my father."

Clark turned and curled himself into Lex's arms. "I'm glad you won, and I'm glad you're not evil."

Over the top of Clark's head, Lex sighed, his arms tight around Clark. "It was close. It was so very close. There was no reason not to. None but the memory of a friend I once had, one who had been so disappointed in me." Lex put his fingers over Clark's lips, preventing a reply. "At times, it almost spurred me to do worse things, in a 'so there' manner. But overall... I wasn't going to be my father. I had to come close, to defeat him... too close, I think."

He left his fingers over Clark's lips for a long time. When he finally moved to stroking along Clark's cheekbones, Clark had the sense not to say anything. He didn't really believe it, though. Lex's instincts were for good, and he'd had to be trained by his father to break rules and do things against people. When it came to just simply reacting, Lex almost always did so for the people around him. Look at all he'd just done for a broken, powerless Superman. Lex might say there was calculation in his actions, but Clark thought it was calculation as in 'how do I explain being nice to my dad and have him accept it'. The instinct was still for the good, even as it had been when they were younger.

In the quiet, with his thoughts running slow and Lex's hands stroking him softly, Clark fell asleep.

… … …

Clark woke up feeling happier than he thought he'd ever been in his life. He loved and was loved in return. It was sappy, but true. He stretched, wondering if it would be too much to burst out in song, or at least humming.

"Good morning," Lex said from somewhere in the back of the plane. "How are you feeling?" 

Clark sat up, evaluating himself. "Huh…" He tried to fly and was still earth-bound. Powerless, yet, "I'm all better." He stood up and flexed his ankle, then walked into the aisle and stretched for real. Not a twinge or an ache. "I don't have my powers back."

"But they obviously returned at some point during the night," Lex finished the thought, eyeing Clark with curiosity and a bit of relief.

Clark nodded, bouncing on his toes. Then he gave into an impulse and took off his belt and cape and started working on the hidden clasps in his uniform.

"What are you doing?" Lex sounded alarmed.

Clark chuckled. "Showing you me. I'm tired of the Superman stuff and you seeing just that."

The expressions on Lex's face vacillated between 'no, you don't have to do that' and 'yes, please'. He ended up turning around and rummaging in the back seats. "You better have something else to wear, then. Especially if you don't have your powers back yet."

As Clark peeled off the alien-made outfit, he had to agree. He'd had no idea how cold it was even inside the plane. Probably nothing to compare to the exterior, but still cold. He got dressed in the new clothes, carefully not asking whose they'd been before. They didn't fit perfectly, but good enough. When he was done, he looked at Lex.

"Clark," Lex said, his voice low and hungry and full of amazement and need. "Clark."

Clark went to him and held Lex tightly, Lex returning the hold just as intensely. This was the hug they'd shared twelve years ago, full of relief in being together, wonder of being alive, and a healthy dose of sexual interest. The time between then and now collapsed, leaving just the two of them here and now, together.

It was probably a long time later when they finally parted. Neither of them was paying attention to the time, and there had been a few half-efforts of pulling away before they came back together. Remarkably, there wasn't any kissing – it was just the holding, and the being there. Twelve years was a very long time.

A sudden crackling over the loudspeaker made them both jump and the moment was lost. Lex immediately headed for the cockpit, and Clark was close behind him.

"I put the radio on 'receive', though I haven't turned the battery on. I figured if we start receiving anything, that's a good indication that we could send out," Lex explained as he settled into the co-pilot's chair and started fiddling with dials. He repeated his SOS of the night before, then started slowly flipping through channels, pausing each time to see if they could hear anything. 

At one point, they heard a conversation between some other people, discussing routine plane information, though they did talk a little about conditions. Clark was relieved to find out that things hadn't been made too bad from the sun flare. A few minor things, from what they could figure out, but the emergency conditions the planet had been on during the aliens' harvesting had protected them from the worst of what might had been.

"This is creepy," Lex muttered as he kept flipping through channels, pausing when they heard people talking.

Clark raised his eyebrows in question.

"No battery. No electricity. Nothing to power it at all, and we're getting signal. It's just… creepy."

"I thought you said it was an established phenomenon."

"Just because it's established doesn't mean it's not creepy."

Clark chuckled. Something the scientist couldn't figure out or understand. There was a vague reason 'why' but not enough for Lex. Clark wouldn't be surprised if after this Lex funded a research station to pinpoint down the exact science behind the phenomenon.

Studying Lex as he was working on the radio, Clark developed his own curiosity. "You're not worried." 

"Humm?" Lex barely looked up.

"You're just going through the motions at this point – you don't really expect anybody to hear, or if they do, for anybody to rescue us, but you're still not worried."

With a grin, Lex finally turned his attention to Clark. It was his old grin, the one that was for Clark, that shared things with his best friend. Close to his regular grin, yet different in just that special way. Yesterday, Lex had grinned at Superman, but having Lex grinning at Clark was like coming home again.

"You'll rescue us," Lex said simply.

Clark lost his happy feeling. "I'm not going to do that!"

Lex snorted. "Of course you will." He picked up a notebook and tossed it at Clark.

Warily, Clark opened the notebook and flipped through it. Calculations. Lots and lots of hand-written calculations. "What is this?"

Lex frowned. " I know you didn't have the best teachers in Smallville, and you were incredibly distracted in college, but this should _not_ be beyond you. As soon as we get back, you and I are going to take care of that."

Getting up, Lex walked over to Clark's chair and flipped the notebook back to the beginning. He pointed at some of the numbers. "This is the ship's approximate mass based on the estimates we had originally. This is the sun." He went through the equations one by one, not letting Clark off the hook for a single one, demonstrating how much of a solar flare would have been produced by the collision and how long it would take for the effects to go by Earth. He'd put in various estimates for how it was affecting Clark, with the differences being ways in which Clark was getting his powers in the first place. According to his calculations, Clark should be back to normal within a few days, three at the most.

Clark was torn between the reminiscent feeling of doing his homework at Lex's castle, and utter terror at what Lex wanted him to do. 

"Lex, no." Clark finally got Lex to shut up for a minute. "I'm not going to risk it. I almost killed you. I'm not going to do that again. Lex, I _can't_! I just can't risk you again."

Lex rocked back on his heels, apparently surprised by Clark's outburst. "Clark, it'll be fine."

"It will not!"

Closing the notebook, Lex studied Clark, chewing on his lower lip thoughtfully. "Okay, we'll put in safety nets. You'll practice every day, every time your powers are back for a little while. There's a lot of them that aren't risky – speed around, use your x-ray… heck, use your frost breath outside and it wouldn't be a problem. Just don't use the heat except cautiously. We'll time it, and we won't even consider you flying until you're able to use another power for three hours continuously. Then we'll do a trial run, carrying emergency supplies. Up the mountain again, flying very low to the ground.  
To where we came down before, then back to the plane again. We'll wait another day after that, then do the three-hour trial again before we leave."

It all _sounded_ reasonable. Clark couldn't think of anything except how he'd nearly killed Lex.

He was suddenly enfolded in warm safe arms, holding him close.

"Everything makes so much more sense now that you're Clark," Lex said with a laugh in his voice. Then he sobered. "It'll be okay. Trust me, Clark. Even if you don't trust yourself, trust me. We'll do this, and it will be fine."

Clark held Lex and let himself believe. 

… … …

Four days later, they went home.

They did it just like Lex said, testing out Clark's powers a bit at a time. After a few times of running around the plane, though, Clark simply floated a foot above the snow and waited until he dropped. It was easier and he didn't usually hurt himself doing it. 

When he and Lex went back up the mountain, Lex matter-of-factly had Clark do search patterns until they found the luggage and backpack that Lex had dropped. It was in surprisingly good condition. 

Then they went back and slept one last night in the plane, with Clark clinging to Lex the whole night. He knew they had to leave, the food was running out if nothing else. 

"If it will make you feel better, we'll take parachutes too," Lex finally huffed out, half amused, half exasperated.

Clark immediately agreed.

The next day they stepped out of the plane, closing the doors behind them. Lex made a last circuit of the cairns, saying farewell while Clark stood back and watched.

Clark picked Lex up, holding him close. He took a deep breath and prepared to do this.

"Would you move in with me?" Lex unexpectedly asked.

"What?" Clark blinked.

"The penthouse. Or if you don't like it, we can go shopping for another house. Something for both of us." 

Lex waited through the surprised pause and then barreled on. "I want to go home, with you. But that home won't be a home unless you're there too. Please, Clark."

"Yes," Clark said giddily, stopping Lex's flow of words. "Yes, Lex. Yes. Home, with you."

Then he flew into the sky with Lex, knowing that now there was nothing at all he couldn't do. That they couldn't do. They were going home.

* * *

END

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted at [the Clexmas Community](http://clexmas.livejournal.com/71979.html). Find all the other wonderful works (24 in all!) at [Clexmas](http://clexmas.livejournal.com/71979.html).


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